


Gone Before

by ELG



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 20:32:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ELG/pseuds/ELG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is visited by an Ascended Daniel as he tries to adjust to his absence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone Before

##### Gone Before

O'Neill woke to the realization that Daniel was somewhere in the room with him. It was dark, the clock ticking quietly to itself, but a breeze had brushed past him even though the windows were closed fast against the winter chill. He scanned the darkness, feeling the sense of Daniel's presence slipping from him as he did so. He couldn't be found like that. He existed somewhere in the place between the conscious and unconscious mind; a waking dream who sometimes kept O'Neill company, although O'Neill hadn't yet decided if it was because he was lonely or because Daniel was. He suspected it was the former though. Daniel had been all lit up at the thought of having a new kind of universe to explore, even at having a new form in which to do it. The tears in his eyes had been a response to the look on O'Neill's face. He'd never been very good at keeping his feelings hidden from Daniel.

So that was probably why Daniel kept drifting back like a silent melody, an unwritten poem, something that seemed to exist and yet didn't have any shape or form whenever it was focused on.

_"Daniel…?"_ He said it silently, not knowing if Daniel's new form gave him the ability to read minds or not. He thought he felt warmth at his back for a moment and moved over to make room. Which was insane, because when Daniel had been corporeal he would never have dreamed of sharing a bed with him, but one or both of them seemed to need the reassurance of proximity now. He missed him most at four in the morning, and at four in the morning he tended to be in bed, so that was why he now had the disembodied ghost of his teammate dropping in of nights to soothe his nightmares away with the comfort of his almost-presence, the warmth of his almost-touch.

He always slept then, and the nightmares didn’t come back, but usually in the morning when the sunlight seeped through the drapes, Daniel would be gone, and the room would feel chill and unusually empty.

He closed his eyes again, feeling his limbs relax; a little annoyed with himself for being soothed by this, and with Daniel for knowing it would soothe him, but the truth was, it did. If he didn't concentrate on it too much, the warmth at his back was there, a sigh against his hair, the merest hint of pressure on his arm. Daniel telling him he hadn't really gone; that he'd be back; or just a way of weaning him off his company gradually? 

It could be that Daniel was afraid for him. Afraid that the old suicidal tendencies might come back again. He'd been seeking distraction in missions, certainly, and it was the nature of missions to be dangerous, but that didn't mean he was actively seeking death. It was just easier not to think when imminent death was near at hand. He didn't want to think about the Daniel-shaped hole in his life; the space his friend should have been occupying; the presence that wasn't at his shoulder; the voice that wasn't saying his name. 

Carter had wept enough for two; wept enough for twenty. She wanted them to cry together; cleave together; she wanted him to rage and rant and find a way to drag Daniel in from the ether, to get him back, make him whole again, make him stay. He couldn't do it, and even if he could, he wouldn't. He wasn't the guy who had grabbed Daniel by the jacket all those years ago, and tried to drag him away from the siren song of that universal language. Daniel had been all grown up for a while now, and they were equals. Being equals meant you both had the right to make your own decisions and the other one did you the courtesy of respecting it; even if they thought you were wrong. And he hadn't thought Daniel was wrong. He knew him too well not to know this after-death experience could be the awfully big adventure Daniel, the wide-eyed wanderer, had been looking for his whole life. The ultimate journey through the Stargate; the ultimate trip into the unknown.

He'd been right there on Kheb when Daniel had thought he was in the process of ascending to a higher plane of enlightenment; could summon fire from sand; could walk through walls; make a gun spin and point at will. Daniel, the magician's apprentice, playing with his dangerous toys; getting his fingers burned in the process, but still wanting to know more, to know how, to know why. 

He could have said 'Don't leave me'. He could have cried. The tears had been right there, threatening to break out. One tear and Daniel would have stayed; let Jacob drag him back from the brink, away from that enlightenment to the mundanity of their endless fight against an enemy that only seemed to grow stronger with each defeat. But he'd found the strength to let Daniel go, the way he'd had to let Charlie go when the doctors had said there was nothing left of their son any more, that the best that they could do for him was switch off the wheezing intrusion of the ventilator and the relentless mendacious readings of a life-support machine whose rhythmic bleep pretended he was living when there was truly no one left. 

O'Neill opened his eyes and immediately the warmth faded; he could see the shadows of the curtains, hear the ticking of the clock; but he could no longer be sure if the presence of Daniel was still with him; but when he closed them again the warmth returned. He could feel the duvet resting on his shoulder, the fine cotton of the pillow against his skin, but behind him there was also a something that wasn't just manmade fibers, someone organic, intangible, unreachable, and infinitely comforting. Comforted, O'Neill slept dreamlessly as the darkness melded gradually into dawn.

***

He didn't know if Daniel was also visiting Carter and Teal'c. As Carter had cried the most and Daniel had never been able to bear to see her cry, he probably was gliding into her house at night to watch over her and try to comfort her. He would probably sit by her bed at night and whisper in her ear he wasn't really gone and wherever he was he would always love her. If she heard those whispers in her consciousness, it probably just made her sob harder into her pillow. Everyone in the SGC was pointedly trying not to notice the way the days were going by and Carter's eyes were just as red as ever. Hammond kept murmuring to him that perhaps some compassionate leave might be…But if they stopped they'd never start again. He felt they had to keep doing this; being who they were; staying a team; so there was something for Daniel to come back to. A unit he could find if the world they occupied became too small and too distant for him. He might not be able to find the SGC, might not even be able to find O'Neill's house; but he was sure he'd be able to find them; SG-1; the fractured unit of which he was the only possible missing piece.

Perhaps Daniel was sitting sometimes with Teal'c during kel-no-reem, trying out his increasing powers in attempting to communicate to a Teal'c who was on the first shaky step of the ladder of enlightenment, while Daniel sat patiently on the top rung. If it helped them, fine, O'Neill wasn't insisting on exclusive visiting rights here. He had to admit it helped him, even though he did resent the time when Daniel was off doing…glowy light things. That had been the point, after all, to learn new things; to see the world literally through completely different eyes. And of course Daniel's powers would be increasing. He had always been a quick study; had so much enthusiasm for new things. He would probably be the most adept…glowy light pupil ever. Before too long he'd be able to set things on fire for real. Well whoopee do….

Daniel seemed to know when he was feeling particularly bitter. There was always something apologetic about the way he literally breezed into the room. A non-corporeal tip-toe. In the old days the look that accompanied it would have been from under the eyelashes, trying to assess how mad O'Neill was, if ducking was in order, or reason and pleading might still prevail.

Sometimes, O'Neill admitted, he had thrown stuff at the walls. Not at Daniel, although once or twice he'd been tempted. But when he knew his ascended teammate was hovering non-corporeally and uncertainly by the mantelpiece, he'd taken care to throw his beer bottle at the lampstand instead. Just because Daniel didn't have a physical form any more, that didn't mean he couldn't be hurt by shards of broken glass. O'Neill had been hurt by shards of broken glass he'd never even seen after all; the ones Daniel had shot out before diving through the window to save a race of worthless warmongers because he believed their lives had to be of so much more value than his own.

O'Neill wasn't so sure. He thought he could have stood that whole planet going up in flames a lot more easily than he could stand losing another friend. He didn't have too many left now. Hammond. Teal'c. Carter. And of those three, Hammond was worried about him; Teal'c didn't entirely understand him, and Carter was pissed with him. 

_I've tried to tell her it's just your way of dealing with the situation._

O'Neill glared at the place where Daniel so emphatically wasn't; not in a manner where you could offer him a beer and watch him drink it anyway. It felt rude sitting here sipping while Daniel stood there by his old citations sober and resolutely invisible.

"Well, can you try telling her a bit more…directly?"

_I don’t know how to do that yet._

"How long is this business going to take anyway?"

_What business?_

"You…" He waved the beer bottle. "Not being…you."

_I'm still me, Jack._

"Well, I liked you better being a you I could see and hear."

_You can see and hear me. You're the only one that can._

"Yes. But that could be just because I'm going _nuts_." 

His voice was too loud in the stillness. It couldn't really be denied that he was effectively talking to himself. What if there was no Daniel here at all, if Daniel was just dead and gone and lost forever?

O'Neill ran a hand through his hair. He was having conversations with a ghost. Something only crazy people did. Or people having breakdowns because they'd just lost their best friend and didn't want to believe they were gone. There always was a logic to insanity; that was what made it so effective at getting a hold on you. When Daniel had been nuttier than a whole supermarket full of fruitcakes he'd come up with a plausible theory for why he was hearing voices and having event horizons in his closets. And now, here O'Neill was, grieving to a point where he was unable to speak a word to anyone, even the people who were mourning this loss too, about how it felt to have lost Daniel; closed-off and internally bleeding so hard it was as if the radiation sores on Daniel's dying body had somehow been transferred to his heart, and lo and behold up popped the ghost of Jackson Past, Present and even possibly Future. A means to hold onto something he had lost.

_I am real, Jack._

"Your grandfather said that hallucinations always tell you that."

_What did he know? He was nuts._

He laughed out loud and then realized how this would have sounded on a NID bug. Now he was laughing at his own jokes.

_It was my joke._

"Not if you're a figment of my imagination."

_Well, I'm not._

"Prove it."

And just for a second, Daniel wasn't just a vague presence out of the corner of his eye, he actually glimpsed him, as clear only as a figure in a faded photograph, but nevertheless there for a moment, rolling his eyes impatiently; ascended to a higher spiritual plane and yet still capable of being irritated by Jack O'Neill. 

"Aren't you supposed to be infinitely patient and long-suffering and all that crap now?"

_It doesn't say so in the manual._

"You get a manual?"

_Of course. You think they send you off on a spiritual journey to a different astral plane and don't even give you a book of instructions?_

"So what does it say?"

_I don't know. It's in a language I can't read yet. Apparently if you follow all the instructions you get the key to the language that makes it possible to follow the instructions._

"Sounds like it was put out by the Pentagon to me." O'Neill looked hard into his beer bottle; turning his head away as he sipped before saying casually, "I miss you, you know."

_I miss you, too._

How could ghosts cry? He couldn't even see Daniel and he knew he was crying. Christ, everyone in the world kept crying except him. He wasn't going to look at him. It didn't matter that even if he did look at him he wouldn't be able to see him. He was damned if he was going to lose it too. "It was your choice to do this."

_I know. I'm sorry._

"Sorry you chose it?"

_Sorry I had to go._

"It's always been just one damned thing after another with you, isn't it?" O'Neill shook his head. "When you're not wanting to run off to other worlds with women you hardly know, you're getting yourself kidnapped or killed, or ascending to higher planes of existence every five minutes. You're a pain in the ass, Daniel."

_Well, so are you._

O'Neill glared at the mantelpiece. "Hey, which one of us can't get served in MacDonalds here? It isn’t me, buddy." 

Damn. That was the trouble when you looked for him; he vanished completely. Daniel had tried to explain it wasn't anything he was doing; he wasn't being coy, it was obviously just something to do with the way O'Neill was perceiving him; there had to be a certain suspension of disbelief. Faced with too much of the reality of the surroundings, O'Neill's mind would rebel and pull the lines of communication.

He had to close his eyes to re-establish contact. He was going to admit it to anyone, but he was having to get in touch with his spiritual side too. Not that he was going to be kel-no-reeming or transcendentally meditating any time soon, but he had found a way to send feelers out from a place that felt suspiciously like his consciousness, checking to see if Daniel was there. The room was always two degrees colder when he wasn't. Try as he might he couldn't _imagine_ Daniel into a room in which he didn't believe he was a presence; not yet. That might come in time though. If Daniel didn't get his butt back to Planet Earth sometime soon, he might just become a conjuring trick O'Neill did whenever he was lonely.

Perhaps that was all he was now. He was sitting in his living room having conversations with his imaginary friend.

_Damnit, Jack, I'm as real as you are. I'm just different from how you are._

The relief flooded through him because the warmth was there and he knew Daniel was there. This time he was careful not to look in his direction. "Real people are visible, Daniel."

_Not always. I wasn't visible when I was affected by that skull on P7X-377 but I was still real._

"I have a little rule of thumb about that. People I can't see or hear aren't real. Therefore you're not real until you get your butt back where it belongs."

_But I don't know where I belong. That's the problem. That's what I had to ascend to find out._

"You were just curious. You've always been too damned curious."

_No one can be too curious._

"Come back and I'll get that made up into a bumper sticker for you."

He felt the air around him sag with defeat.

_Are you asking me to?_

His conscience twanged him hard. He'd promised himself he wouldn't do this. "No." He took another sip of beer. "Not until you're ready. Not until you want to."

_Part of me wants to all the time._

"And the rest of you?"

_There's so much to learn, Jack. It's so…different being like this. I know so much and so little. I know how much there is I don't know. That we don't know. I'm learning so much._

"Stay then." He swallowed hard. "Stay until coming home is the right thing to do."

_I wish I could have brought you all with me._

O'Neill held up the beer bottle in mock-gratitude. "Well, thanks for the thought, but I'm trying to give up the glowy-light thing."

He still hadn't found the courage to ask what these visits were. A way of keeping contact or a way of weaning O'Neill off him slowly, trying to make the parting less painful for them? The way the dead revisited you in your dreams until your waking mind was more ready to let them go.

_I have to go._

"Okay." He tried to come up with a quip for the occasion, but the loneliness when Daniel left was awful.

_Why don't you and Teal'c take Sam to the movies?_

"She'll want me to cry. Women always want you to cry. They want us to be exactly like them, only with a penis. I mean why is that? I don't want them to be just like me only with breasts."

_There's nothing wrong with crying, Jack._

For me there is.

He didn't say it aloud. He barely said it in his head. But somehow he suspected Daniel still heard him. That breeze at the back of his neck sounded suspiciously like a sigh of resignation. Daniel also wanted them all to comfort one another instead of mourning in their own individual and isolated ways. No doubt he felt they would feel better for it. Or perhaps it would just mean he could cut down on the housecalls.

"Go, then. Go do…glowy stuff."

_Goodbye._

There probably wasn't a way to say that word that didn't sound final but it made the panic worse. The room was already seeming colder, the silence louder.

"See you around…?"

His voice didn't sound as steady as he would have liked. 

_Only if I can kick the non-corporeal thing._

"How long does that usually take anyway?"

_Depends._

"That's a little…non-specific."

_Be grateful I didn't give you the Oma version."_

"You know if you come back talking in riddles I _will_ hurt you."

_See you around, Jack…._

Then the drapes shivered in the breeze and the room felt empty and curiously cold. O'Neill shivered and crossed over to the thermostat, turning the temperature up five degrees to make up for the warmth Daniel had taken with him. But when he switched on the television set he found that even turning it up louder and louder couldn't quite drown out the sound of the silence; or stop him from constantly listening for a voice he could hear only in his mind.

***

O'Neill blew on his fingers before turning the key in the lock. He still hated coming home to an empty house after a mission. He was used to it now, certainly. He no longer closed his eyes and hoped that perhaps Sara had come back while he was away and everything could go back to how it had been before. They were both different people now and he was used to living by himself. Middle-age was starting to encroach, and with it the certain signs of someone who wanted things done his own way and was getting too old to adapt or compromise. It was quite possible the only person left in any universe who could now live with Jack O'Neill was Jack O'Neill. But that didn't mean that coming home to a house with all the lights off and the only noise to greet him being the low hum of the refrigerator didn't suck rocks.

He'd hoped while they'd been away taking soil samples on some planet that had all the variety and excitement of Iowa that Freyr or Heimdall might have been in touch to give them up an update on Thor. But he'd come back to the SGC to nothing more interesting than a request that they sent someone to act as neutral mediator in a minor boundary dispute on a world he hardly remembered. 

The Asgard were lousy at keeping in touch. Just like the Tok'ra. They were foul weather friends and then some. Whenever they wanted help they couldn't get to Earth fast enough; call them for assistance, and they were always curiously unavailable. Except for Thor. Thor had always come through for them; negotiated on their behalf; been there for them. Most…people who talked in riddles and regarded him from a lofty height irritated him but there was something about Thor that reached his softer side. A little like Daniel really. And now both of them were dependent upon the care and protection of others. He hoped the Asgard were taking good care of Thor. They would lose a lot more than a good commander if they lost him.

He didn't doubt Oma Desala was competent at what she did, even if what she did happened to be existing on a different spiritual plane or whatever and occasionally zapping death gliders out of the sky. She'd taken good enough care of Shifu even if she had taught the boy an unfortunate habit of talking in riddles. But she was still, when all was said and done, an exile and quite possibly an outlaw from people just as powerful as herself who might not take kindly to her interfering in the lives of humans the way she did. Daniel could get caught in the crossfire and there wouldn't be a damned thing O'Neill could do about it. He wouldn't even know about it. Daniel would get burnt up in that higher plane of his, and all O'Neill would know was that the access visits had stopped. He would never have a clue if that was because Daniel had decided he no longer needed the long goodbye and would be better off with a clean break, or if Daniel was finally and irrevocably dead this time.

As he walked into the house he couldn't help trying to sense Daniel's presence. He'd told himself he wasn't going to do this. He wasn't going to get dependent on something over which he had no control; wasn't going to expect it, or wait for it, or need it as much as this. But the chill emptiness of the house was a gut-wrenching disappointment. Every room was cold and void, with no trace that Daniel had ever been in them. Switching on the lights, even stalking from room to room switching on every light in the house didn't summon anything but the faint smell of dust grilling on the glass bulbs. 

He angrily jerked up the thermostat. Daniel was wreaking havoc on his heating bills, damn him for not just being happy to be human. Most people were, after all. People occasionally wanted to change their gender or their sexual preferences, or had a few problems with nicotine cravings, but not Daniel, no; he had to be dissatisfied about being from a species that couldn't habitually glide through walls.

O'Neill walked back into the kitchen. There was beer in his fridge, the same brand he'd offered Daniel that first night back from Abydos when he'd been such a ludicrously cheap date. No point in thinking about that now. Tonight he would drink beer, order take out, watch sports. It was a good night in for a man of his age and with his interests. It may not get the pulse racing in the way it would to watch say Uma Thurman doing the Dance of the Seven Veils, but it was still a perfectly acceptable way to unwind after being sent off to save the galaxy yet again.

He looked around the kitchen, wondering how you could possibly tell if you really were going insane. He wasn't quite sure how he'd been suckered into this job in the first place. He didn't like ultra-science, or even common or garden science, come to think of it. He didn't like tangling with aliens at all. Glowing-eyed parasites, things out of phase, scaly monsters with teeth and claws, and allies who'd stab them in the back as soon as look at them were so not who he wanted to be spending time with. He didn't have Daniel's insatiable curiosity for the Great Unknown to get him all fired up about freezing his butt off or getting bitten by new and possibly deadly species of insects on some uninhabitable new world a couple of times a month, or Carter's need to know how every piece of alien technology worked and if they could make a copy of it for the SGC to compensate him for being shot at on all too regular basis. He'd much rather watch a Nicks game. 

He had a soft spot for Abydos. He liked the people and it helped that the people liked him. He'd sometimes thought about retiring there, except one didn't get a lot of fishing on a desert world, and the curling, as Daniel had pointed out, really sucked. He often thought there was nothing like traveling all over the galaxy for making a guy appreciate his home state, and frankly the more he saw of the infinite wonders of the universe the more he liked Minnesota. 

So all in all he thought of himself as a level-headed guy, but he'd gone more than slightly wacko after the death of his son, and there seemed to be a more than even possibility he had gone slightly wacko now as well. For days now he'd been convinced that Daniel was paying him house and work calls as a whisper in the ether, a comforting warmth against his back at night. Either way he was clearly going a little loco because Daniel was the worst dream-fidget in the universe and when he had been in his own physical non-irradiated body had been someone who had regularly kicked O'Neill in the shins at night on missions where they had to bunch up close for warmth. So even supposing Daniel wasn't a total figment of his imagination and actually was floating around as a Higher Being, finding him reassuring to sleep with was still a little strange. 

He knew Mackenzie would spout lots of crap about the comfort of the familiar; the way his subconscious was gradually drip-feeding into his consciousness a truth which he couldn't deal with all at once. His mind was letting go slowly for the sake of his aching heart. He was at the age and the time of his life when he couldn't easily accept change, so he was having to let go of his dead friend by degrees; too big a change too fast for him to comprehend by ordinary means.

But if he was just conjuring Daniel out of nowhere, he ought to be able to do it here. He was feeling like crap right now. So he should be able to will Daniel to come and talk to him to make him feel better.

O'Neill closed his eyes and tried to find him; to make the room warmer; sense his presence; he emptied his mind and relaxed his body just the way he'd had to teach himself; made himself as receptive and open as he could, putting out a welcome mat for the ghost of Daniel to float in and make itself at home.

The room stayed cold and empty. 

He tried again. Keeping his eyes closed, his shoulders relaxed, so receptive he wondered why every poltergeist in the astral plane didn't drop in to reorganize his cutlery drawer. But he couldn't make that tingle happen; the breeze through his hair; the feeling he wasn't alone. The place in his mind where Daniel's voice sounded remained resolutely silent.

After twenty futile minutes trying to convince himself he was master of his own insanity, he gave in, grabbed a beer, ordered one of the only three Chinese meals on the menu he knew how to pronounce, and watched sports with the sound turned up too loud, the way they had it in nursing homes, not even bothering to mute the commercials, welcoming the white noise of their inanity as a means of drowning out that persistent spot of silence.

 

When ten pm came and went he knew he had to accept Daniel probably wasn't coming this evening. He'd like to think Daniel was keeping tabs on them, dropping into the SGC from time to time to find out what mission they were on and when they'd be home again, but this time Daniel seemed to have forgotten them. There hadn't been a ghostly breeze in the corridor to greet them this time, or that gentle ruffle of his hair. Perhaps Daniel had moved on, and he should too. Or Daniel had been dead all along and his denial chip was starting to work itself loose.

He didn't need to be an alien with the power to float through the ether to know that Carter was home crying again. Last time he'd looked in on Teal'c when the big guy had been meditating, even the smoky candlelight hadn’t been dim enough to disguise the two tear tracks running down his face as he performed kel-no-reem. He'd seen Hammond with suspiciously bright eyes more than once and Doc Fraiser was having to wear so much make-up she was starting to look like a raccoon. 

So, he wasn't alone in his misery. Everyone was missing Daniel like stink; unsure whether to mourn his passing or wait for his return; and he was trapped in this miserable indecision with them; grieving something that might or might not be a death. And, Christ, how many times was Daniel going to put him through this? Abydos. Nem's world. Klorel's ship. P3R-636 under that damned pile of rocks. Carelessly disappearing right under his eyes after messing with that crystal skull. Getting dragged off by an Unas that logically should have had him for smorgasbord long before O'Neill could find him. Damned near getting himself blown up on a ship that O'Neill himself was firing on. Tap-dancing on a balcony eight floors up then coding right before his eyes. And then getting himself contaminated with a lethal dose of radiation just to save a few billion people they didn't even know. How inconsiderate was that?

On the other hand given how many times Daniel had gone before, seemingly for good, and then come back again, perhaps he should take hope from all these apparent hits that had turned out to be near misses after all…

_Hey, Jack…._

Even before he heard his name spoken he was aware of the warmth; a lightness in the room that didn't come from one particular place, just a sudden enrichment of the colors. He tried to hide the big silly grin on his face, to stay non-committal, taking a concealing sip of his beer. "Hello, Stranger."

A sigh sounded from somewhere by the mantelpiece. _Don't sulk._

"Who said anything about sulking? I'm just pointing out it's been ten days."

_I know. I'm here now, aren't I?_

O'Neill looked at his watch. "I got home five hours ago."

_I went to see Sam first. She isn't doing too well. I needed to persuade Teal'c to go and see her. He knows the right things to say._

He was intrigued by that despite himself. "How did you do that? I thought I was the only one who could hear or see you?"

He was aware of Daniel blinking at him in mild exasperation even though he couldn't actually see him; he could picture it in his mind's eye; a kind of ripple by the mantelpiece that was slightly annoyed yet basically fond. He missed that. How tragic was that? He missed having Daniel roll his eyes and get impatient with him. He definitely needed to see a head shrinker or else Daniel needed to become human again soon.

_I've found a way to reach him through kel-no-reem. When he's meditating he's actually attempting to reach part of the same place inside himself that I had to find to ascend, so there's a kind of 'meeting-place' there which I can utilize to…._

"You're starting to sound like that monk guy."

_No, I'm not._

"Yes, you are."

_I am not._

"Any day now you're going to be telling me about bulls and candles and stuff."

_You're just pissed because I went to see Sam and Teal'c before I came to see you._

"Oh don't flatter yourself." He picked up his beer in annoyance. A guy damned near died a horrible lingering death in front of you, scared you half out of your mind, then insisted on ascending to a higher plane of existence, and just because you got a little cranky as a consequence he took that as proof positive you were now as sappy as everyone else in the SGC. Well no way, José.

Daniel's sigh of resignation was just as annoyingly martyr-like as anything he'd ever achieved in his human form.

O'Neill glared at him. "Are you done with the fluffy cloud thing yet?"

_No. I'm still learning._

"What did you learn today?"

_About how it feels to be water._

"Oh." O'Neill was nonplussed. "Useful."

He could see that smile on Daniel's face that other guys only got when people were doing X-rateable things to their extremities but which Daniel got if you gave him a chipped piece of slate with some incomprehensible squiggles on it or a chunk of really good chocolate. 

_It was incredible. The most amazing feeling._

"I'll take your word for it." 

_There's so much to learn. So much to know._

"There's plenty out there too. Through the Stargate, I mean. On missions. Remember those?" O'Neill took a cautious sip of beer as he said it, darting a glance at the place where Daniel wasn't. Except this time Daniel kind of…was. There was something there, certainly, a shape, more than the memory of a reflection; something tangible. "Hey, you're getting…visible."

_I am?_

And he could actually see Daniel look down at himself in surprise. He looked the same; apart from being see-through; but healthy enough given his non-physical shape.

_I must be getting better at this._

"Am I the only one who can see you?"

_I think I can make it that way, yes. It needs some fine-tuning. You have to kind of…feel your way into it. It takes a bit of practice._

"Being visible looks good on you."

_Thank you._

God it was good to see that smile again. Daniel pleased because O'Neill had actually said something nice to him. Well, he wasn't getting mushy, but the occasion had seemed to demand it. 

"You're welcome." He couldn't stop grinning like an idiot, but somehow having an outline, in fact positively getting more and more solid albeit in a see-through kind of way, was making Daniel seem like so much more than an imaginary friend he had conjured up to help him through his grief.

Daniel smiled at him gently. _I always meant to come back if I could, Jack._

"Well, take all the time you need. Just as long as what you need isn't very long." He kept smiling but his eyes were serious. Seeing Daniel again was also reminding him how much he missed him; how much they all missed him; how incomplete they felt without him. "Carter misses you. So does Teal'c. Hell even Hammond is moping." He darted another look at him, trying not to use the emotional blackmail card but wanting to see that wince from Daniel, that assurance that he knew how much he was missed and hadn't let them recede too far from his astral plane reality. "Everything might be different for you up there in glowy-light land but down here it's pretty much the same for us. Except for…." He couldn't say it. It still hurt too much.

_Except for me being dead._

"You're not dead!"

_No, I'm not, but you keep thinking that I am._

"Well, how does a guy tell if something is a figment of his imagination anyway?"

Daniel walked over to balance precariously on the arm of the other chair. He seemed to have a little trouble working out where his body was and there was a faintly disconcerting glow about him that was much too reminiscent of Oma Desala for comfort. 

_Would a figment of your imagination tell you not to be an ass?_

"If that figment was you, yes it probably would." O'Neill put his head on one side, assessing him. There was no radiation scarring on his body; no burns or sores. It was good to see him without bandages; without pain. "Don't you miss being able to drink beer?"

_I don't like beer._

"Coffee. You must miss coffee."

Daniel unconsciously licked his lips. O'Neill could actually see him do it; his features filled in enough that he could see the paleness of his teeth, the movement of his tongue across his lips; the same habits even though he wasn't really inhabiting the same form. Still Daniel despite everything. 

O'Neill took another swig of beer. "Chocolate too. I bet they don't have Snickers in fluffy cloud land."

Daniel blinked, recalling himself from the distraction. _Are you trying to bribe me with caffeine and chocolate?_

O'Neill shrugged. "It's worth a try."

_Jack, I'll come back as soon as I can._

"When?"

_When the time is right._

"How will you know when that is?"

_I just will._

"How will _I_ know when that is?"

_Because I'll be back._

"They'll try to give us a fourth." 

He saw Daniel wince then look resigned. _Try not to give him a hard time, whoever he turns out to be. It's not his fault he's my replacement._

"He's _not_ your replacement." He couldn't stop the venom snapping out.

Daniel looked surprised. _Because…?_

"You're irreplaceable." 

He turned away as he said it, embarrassed by how sappy he'd just been, taking a swig of beer to compose himself. When he looked back, Daniel had that look in his eyes again, the one that hurt him to look at, Daniel's eyes filled with tears. Why the hell did Daniel always have to take the difficult path to everywhere? Why choose a route that made everything so painful for all of them, just because it was the only road a true child of the universe and explorer of the galaxy could take to find his destiny. Most people would have turned their backs on a path so difficult; ignored those questions when finding their answers was going to be so hard. But not Daniel, he had to do this and they all had to go through hell missing him until he found his own way again, while praying all the time his way was also theirs. But what if he wasn't? What if they waited and waited, and in the end they weren't where he was headed after all? He could feel himself gazing at Daniel dumbly, willing him to need them as much as they needed him, to need to come back as much as they needed him to return.

Daniel smiled at him despite the tears in his eyes. _Wait for me._

O'Neill felt the tears flood in one hot gush of salt and then he was wiping his eyes, saying gruffly, "Just make sure you come back."

_I will._

"As you."

_I'm me now._

"As a you we can all see and hear and smack around the back of the head if you _ever_ pull another stunt like the last one."

He could clearly see the hand with which Daniel reached up to wipe his eyes. _Deal._ Daniel got to his feet. _I have to go now._

"So soon?" Damn, that sounded needy.

_The sooner I learn what I need to know, the sooner I can come back._

"What do you need to know?"

_Well, the technique for becoming mortal again is a bit of a necessity._

"How long is it going to take?" As Daniel opened his mouth, he stabbed a finger at him. "And don't even _think_ about telling me time is meaningless or in one blink of my eye lightning sparks and a snowflake can't exist in the grass along the shore or I swear to god I'll…"

Daniel held up his hands in surrender and this time the far wall of the living room was barely visible through him. _I'll be as fast as I can._

O'Neill shrugged. "Well, no pressure. Just remember I'll be ritually sacrificing your replacements at the rate of one a month until you get back."

Daniel sighed again. _I'll remember._

As Daniel moved towards the door, O'Neill followed him, gripping the neck of his beer bottle. "Don't get so wrapped up in all that spiritual enlightenment stuff you forget about us."

_I promise I won't._

"Because you do that sometimes. Universal language. Exciting squiggles. Nice glowing lights or something. Bang. We don't exist any more. So I'm just saying…"

_Jack_. It was a shock to find Daniel only a breath away from him, standing right in front of him, so close he ought to be able to touch him, glowing with white light the way Oma had and Shifu had. Even more of a shock to feel the unmistakable sensation of the back of gentle fingers brushing the side of his face. _I couldn't forget you even if I wanted to._

He couldn't help himself. He reached up to see if he could feel the back of Daniel's hand, closing his eyes to concentrate, focused and receptive at the same time, and there it was, the faintest sensation of warm, human skin. Still Daniel. Still human. A temporary transformation which was repairable and reversible, just like this situation. 

_And believe me, Jack, sometimes I really want to…._

He opened his eyes to see Daniel smiling despite the tears in his eyes. Being turned into a transcendental being hadn't stopped him being impossibly soft-hearted where his teammates' grief was concerned. Over at Carter's they both must weep bucket-loads. 

Daniel backed up and O'Neill felt the warmth slip away from him.

_Look after Sam and Teal'c._

"Hey, it's their job to look after me."

_I already asked them to look after you._

"Come back and do the job yourself."

_When I come back, maybe I'll be able to._

"You going to be able to zap deathgliders out of the sky?"

Daniel smiled again. _No._

"Shame."

The white light was getting brighter. Daniel preparing to dissipate back into the astral plane or whatever it was he did before heading back to the SGC where he was presumably sneaking in and out of the Stargate invisibly along with incoming and outgoing teams. 

O'Neill swallowed hard, forcing a smile despite the lump in his throat. "So, see you around…?"

Daniel's smile was reassuring as was that firm nod. _See you around._

This time when he shimmered and disappeared the room didn't seem so cold. The silence so loud. The loneliness so unbearable.

O'Neill sat back down, his beer bottle still grasped in his fingers. As he changed the volume on the television set to something a little quieter than the roar of sports, he couldn't stop that little smile breaking out that he would have been embarrassed to have Daniel see. 

Because this time it really felt as if Daniel was going to be coming back.

##### The End


End file.
